


Afraid

by GallicGalaxy



Category: The Wolf Among Us
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Gen, Post-Canon, Senseless fluff, This isn't supposed to be as gay as it seems, What Have I Done, what even is this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-16 07:25:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5819494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallicGalaxy/pseuds/GallicGalaxy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bigby and Crane go for a walk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afraid

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know precisely why I decided to write this, probably something to do with how much I love Crane even though he's completely awful. I started formulating a post-canon AU, because even though I'm 3000 years late to the party for this fandom I'm kinda trying to pull away from the Outlast fandom a bit so I'm just foraying into whatever I can get right now.  
> This wasn't meant to be romantic, but it seemed like the more I wrote the gayer it became so I kinda stopped trying to control it and just left it as is despite the Cranewolf undertones (or overtones...)  
> (Don't ask how Crane got back when I'm pretty sure Bloody Mary sent him to Paris because I honestly don't know)

"Crane?"

No answer. Again. Bigby sighed softly and leaned back on his heels. 

"Come on, Crane." He urged, trying not to sound too harsh. It seemed as though even when he tried to be nice, he ended up hurting people more than helping them. "You can't hide in there forever." Bigby declared, trying to seem concerned instead of threatening.

"Listen, I'm not here to hurt you." Bigby continued, his voice soft but strong. "I just want to make sure you're okay."

That prompted the promising sounds of shuffling from behind the door. Bigby raised his eyebrows a little; a part of him had honestly doubted that Crane would come to the door at all.

But apparently he'd done something right, for the door edged open, and a pair of fearful eyes greeted him from the other side. 

After a moment of almost sickly silence, Crane took his uneasy gaze off of Bigby and stared at the floor. "Well, you got what you wanted. I'm alive." He muttered, sounding strangely defeated.

He looked...crumpled. Like the human equivalent of a piece of paper that had been balled up and tossed away, collecting dust beside a wastebasket. His hair was unkempt, and his eyes reddened and gaunt. He definitely hadn't been taking care of himself, and it showed. Bigby couldn't help but feel a tug of pity.

"Crane..." He began, sympathy ringing deeply in his voice. He was quiet for too long, unsure of what to say and what would send Crane running back inside. Clearly, in one way or another, Crane was searching for Bigby's help, because he hadn't left yet. "There's...a difference between being alive and being okay, you know." Bigby murmured, rubbing his neck as he spoke. He raised his eyebrows in concern, eyes wide and bright. "And you don't look okay."

"I'm fine." Crane mumbled, knowing that he wasn't fooling anybody. He wouldn't even look at Bigby's face again.

"I know...a lot of things have happened. To you. To everyone." Bigby attempted to begin, only hoping he was saying the right thing. "Everything's changing now. Or is trying to change. Nobody's sure where to go, or what to do..." Bigby sighed again and leaned against the door frame. "It seems like taking down the bad guy has just made everything worse." He breathed, smiling a sad smile. He glanced over at Crane, checking the status of their conversation. He'd finally looked up at Bigby, but his feminine eyes were nearly tearful. Was that good or bad?

"I know...you feel bad." Bigby lowered his voice. "But, you know, feeling guilty isn't the worst sign." He was making tentative progress, trying to be gentle, and knowing that he was bad at comforting others. "It means that you know what you did wasn't right, and that's the first step to recovering from it all." Bigby smiled and nodded a little at Crane, who straightened up a bit, but was still either uncertain or just lost in his emotions. 

"I...suppose so." Crane sniffed, his voice nearly inaudible. Bigby glanced behind him, out at his window and the wintry city. It gave him an idea.

"Hey, if you wanna talk about it..." Bigby started, eyes sparkling out of nowhere. "Why don't we go for a walk? Get outta this place, breathe some fresh air, clear the air with just the two of us?" Crane widened his eyes and glanced around anxiously as though waiting for something to spring out of the shadows. He pulled at the edge of his poorly-kept coat and stared at the floor again.

"Listen, I know I'm not always the most...uplifting person to be around," Bigby offered. "But...I know how you feel. I also know that I usually get kinda up-in-arms when other people say that, but...usually, they don't mean it." Bigby smiled with one corner of his mouth, as genuinely as possible. "I'm not one to throw that phrase around lightly. I really do mean it." He gave a sad blink and adjusted his position. "Believe me when I say that I know what it feels like to be the bad guy. To look back at your past and just feel like...like shit. Like there's nothing you can do, because you can't make everyone..." Bigby sighed deeply and shook his head remorsefully. "You can't make them forget...that person that you used to be. The things you did. You feel like nobody will ever really trust you again."

Bigby's voice was now heavy with regret, and a grief so deep that even the sound of it made it seem like it could never be removed from him by any force of man or magic. "I know it's not fun." Bigby concluded, with a few sad little nods of his head. Crane rubbed at his collar, the sadness in his eyes now almost looking like sympathy. "And I've done worse than you." Bigby nearly whispered, his eyes glittering with repressed sorrow. 

Crane nodded a few times, seeming to accept this. "Alright, alright." He stammered, with a brief glance towards the window. "I could stand to get outside, couldn't I?" He mused. "I'll meet you down in the lobby...then?"

"Yeah, sure thing." Bigby nodded. He gave Crane one faint final smile before slowly striding away.

Bigby passed by his own apartment on the way down to pick up his heavy winter coat, as it was too cold outside to brave the snowy streets without some protection from the elements. Hopefully he wouldn't encounter anyone who would ask where he was going, but even if he did, he might just tell the truth. Other Fables had been concerned about Crane, too, even though most of them didn't want to be, and most of them didn't show it.

Bigby waited in the lobby, pacing around a little, expecting Crane to need time. He tried to keep himself from worrying too much, but all the progress they'd already made would be completely erased if Crane didn't even show up. 

He was almost surprised when Crane actually came down. But pleasantly surprised, at least, to see that Crane had made himself look presentable again. He was wearing a coat that looked to heavy for his bones, as well as a thick purple scarf that he could've buried his entire face in.

Bigby's coat was almost more of a duster, long and heavy, the furlike trim on the hood shielding his neck almost like a scarf would. He smiled when he saw Crane looking like himself again, well-dressed and a bit healthier. Bigby gestured him towards the door with a flick of his head, and side-by-side, wolf and crane, they emerged from the woodlands and made their way out into the icy streets.

Crane's scarf fluttered as he walked, and he pulled it up over his mouth. "I hardly ever go out during winter, you know." He stated, breaking out of his timorous shell. "I catch cold so easily."

Bigby thought of a million things to say, encouraged by the appearance of that little bit of the haughty Crane he once knew, but all he voiced was, "This is a special circumstance." With a smirk on his face.

"Of course." Crane conceded, almost startlingly genuine.

It was a bright winter night, the city humming with electricity as its residents strove for warmth. Countless lights were reflecting off of the banks of snow huddled on the sides of the road, which in turn seemed to radiate it back onto the steely hues of cars and buildings. It was still an hour when people were out and about, what with how early it got dark in winter. Countless shops cast an inviting glow, like open arms, from their immaculate windows.

The cold of winter was both exhilarating and deeply saddening to Bigby's instincts. Somehow it heightened his senses, keened his perception of the world, but at the same time it was like staring into some haunting memory. The wind whispered sadness itself into his ears, and all of a sudden...

All of a sudden, he was there again, the cold gnawing at his bones while he howled aimlessly into the wind that stole his tiny little voice away as soon as it came from his tiny little mouth. Everything was white, all around, an endless void in which sky was indistinguishable from ground, snow from frozen fur, and tormented cries from roaring wind.

"Bigby? Are you alright?" Crane's voice beckoned the wolf from his trance.

"Yeah." Bigby grunted. The cruel wind stroked his hair as he shook the illusion out of his head. "I'm fine."

Crane didn't believe him, but he chose not to pry into the matter any further. Instead, he started upon the heavy subject balancing unsteadily between them: "Why did you come up to my room?"

"I've been worried about you." Bigby shrugged. "I can't help but...feel a little responsible." He tucked a hand into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes he hadn't even known he was carrying. "I mean..." He sighed on a smoky breath. "Despite everything...I don't think you're all bad. I know you aren't."

Crane adjusted his scarf thoughtfully. "Well...thank you for believing in me." Bigby saw him smile with the corners of his mouth. 

"It's...it's hard." Bigby murmured. "For all of us. But I'm...I'm trying to do my best. And I couldn't say that I care about every Fable if I left you to rot without a second thought." With that, he glanced over at Crane, still progressively gauging his reactions. "Believe it or not, we care about you. We want you around."

"Thank you, Bigby." Crane purred, sounding almost flattered. "That means a lot to me." He gave Bigby a sweet little smile and adjusted his glasses. "Really, I've just been...such a mess lately." He sighed, glancing at the lines of shops passing by along the street. "I never want to come down from my room anymore, because...after all I've done, I know everyone hates me. And I can't even fault them for it." His voice wavered into a pathetic whimper. "I know that nobody would want to see my face. And no apology could ever atone for the...the things I did."

"It always hurts." Bigby agreed. "When everyone hates you, when you know it, and you finally care. So far, I've found that the best thing to do is just keep going. Keep trying your best, even if it seems like nobody appreciates it, just keep doing it for yourself. Honestly? They're probably more likely to forgive you than they are me, in the long run." Bigby shrugged again, smoke trailing from his lips. "I've done a lot worse than you have, trust me."

Crane folded his hands in front of himself and nodded silently.

"I'm glad you decided to come with me." Bigby declared suddenly as they walked aimlessly through the city streets. "Because, you know..." He stammered as he tried to recover from any accidental awkwardness he may have caused. "When you came to the door, you looked really...haggard. Disheveled. And, a lot of the time, when people stop taking care of themselves like that, when they stop caring about themselves..." Bigby trailed off and concluded his sentence with a long draw on his cigarette.

For a little while, they walked on in respectful silence, Bigby wondering if he'd been too overt with his levels of concern and Crane wondering where all this empathy of Bigby's had suddenly come from.

"I'm glad you invited me." Crane murmured after a while, with another soft smile.

"Don't mention it." Bigby dismissed. "Just doing my job. Protecting people." Crane tucked his hands into his pockets bashfully. As he watched the world drift by slowly, the bright yellow lights standing out among the blues and whites of the winter night, a few white sparks began to dash towards the ground. Countless more then followed, dancing along with the patterns of the wind.

Snowfall.

Crane shivered slightly at the mere sight of it. He had a pathetically low cold tolerance, even wrapped up in a scarf and a coat. "Gettin' too cold for you?" Bigby chuckled. He had a naturally high body temperature, and a decidedly high resistance to cold in general. It scarcely bothered him, but he imagined that Crane didn't share the same traits.

"It's always too cold for me." Crane sniffed. 

"Well, you wanna head back?" Bigby asked casually. "I mean, unless there's...anything else you wanted to talk about right now."

"We can talk more on the way back." Crane declared, rather stiffly. Those little moments where the stern, stuffy Crane re-emerged actually made Bigby feel reassured, because he seemed himself again. But even then, Bigby thought Crane was plenty himself when he was wistful and demure. Perhaps he was just a different kind of person when he was in a position of authority.

Bigby discarded the remnants of his cigarette on the street corner, and snuffed it into the wet concrete with his foot. Nodding in Crane's direction, he turned and led the way back. They'd mostly gone in a straight line, so it wouldn't take all that long to get back to the Woodlands.

The snowfall had generated some sort of strange distance between them. It was as though they were afraid that the snow would steal all the words they had intended for each other, and take them upon itself. Bigby blinked into the snow, brown eyes looking mournful, and edged a little closer to Crane, not wanting to break the connection they'd managed to cultivate. 

Crane took note of this with a shy little glance in Bigby's direction. "Thank you again." He coughed, breaking the melancholy silence.

Bigby shrugged, blinking under the city lights. "Hey, like I said, don't mention it." He replied. 

"Yes, but you...you didn't have to help me." Crane continued. "You didn't need to be so concerned about me, and I wouldn't have expected you to in the first place." 

"Sometimes unexpected things happen." Bigby half-chuckled. "And every now and again, unexpected things happen for the better."

"I'll be sure to remember that." Crane said softly.

"I hope I did some good." Bigby breathed. "I hope I've done some good overall. For everyone."

"Well, at the very least, you've done some good for me." Crane comforted. "I think you'll do well."

"And I hope you'll be doing better." Bigby nodded.

The walk home was quieter, there being a deeper understanding of sorts between them. Once more they came upon the Woodlands, walking seamlessly together through the gates and along the concrete. Something in their minds had synchronized, a knowledge of each other and a responsiveness to the other's feelings. Bigby wished he could've seen more of Crane like this prior to the fall of the Crooked Man. They certainly would've gotten along better.

A gust of warm wind washed over their faces as soon as the front doors were opened. It was a pleasant change from the bitter cold outside.

They rode up in the elevator together, a little glowing smile still hiding on Crane's features. He kept looking anxiously down at his scarf, like he had something to say but wasn't sure whether or not to actually say it.

"Bigby," He began, clearing his throat.

"Hmm?"

"Can you promise me something?" Crane requested, in a timid tone of voice.

Bigby knew he wasn't always the best with promises. But he still smiled uncertainly and declared, "I'll try my damnedest." 

"It's nothing of importance," Crane stammered, eyes as bright as the winter night. "Just...promise me we'll...talk like this again sometime?"

"Of course."


End file.
